MAJESTIC BIRD

Birdhead explain their design inspirations: "Photography is Birdhead's major creative medium. Our work is based on shooting numerous photographs inspired by our daily life, which really drives us to understand 'the meaning of time' implied by photography. This understanding arises not only from the moments when we shoot the images, but also during the process of developing the negatives, enlarging the film in the darkroom, and through the process of developing the actual photographs. When we look at all our images, emerging on photo paper, that’s when the feeling of time elapsing begins to become apparent. Swatch makes products which are connected to time, so it felt very natural for us to design a watch for Swatch. In our design, we focused on the meaning of 'time' as we understand it. The enlarged particles of silver salt, the use of film photography, as well as the significant focus we gave to the packaging, have all been collectively explored to create our overall design. The watch and the packaging feature an image of a flying bird which is composited by enlarged particles of silver salt. This print is taken from a photograph in our book 'Birdhead 2006, Xin Cun' and four chapter titles we used for this book, which are four Chinese characters: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. The pattern on the watch's surface is part of this print, which we cut out."

New Gent

Birdhead

Birdhead is a creative alliance formed in 2004 by Shanghai artists Ji Weiyu and Song Tao. The two have since gained great acclaim for their distinctive and thought-provoking photographic works, which often use a deliberate ‘snapshot’ aesthetic to capture on camera all manner of moments from their daily lives. Birdhead has successfully exhibited these works in a wide range of solo and group shows staged in noted galleries, museums and cultural institutions from Oslo, Hong Kong and London to Tokyo, Florence, Shanghai and New York.